


By The Light Of Day

by Fyre



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 12:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13124232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: Eugenides reflects on his wife's actions.A follow-up toLike a Thief in the Night





	By The Light Of Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neutrophilic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neutrophilic/gifts).



Dawn was coming, warming the bedchamber.

Eugenides sat cross-legged, watching his wife sleep, wishing – not for the first time – that there was nothing to distract them: no royal obligations, no duties, no attendants, no plans. She looked so serene when she was untroubled by the weight of her crown. It stole his breath to wake and see her asleep and trusting beside him, no matter how many nights went by.

He reached out to delicately tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. Her eyes flickered open immediately, though he saw the moment when she went from drowsiness to awake and a little of the tension returned to her face. 

“Your ladies will be waiting,” he murmured, tracing the back of one finger down her cheek. “Did you tell them where you would be sleeping?”

Irene closed her eyes, breathing softly in, then exhaling. “I didn’t think to tell them anything.”

He drew his hand back. “You came straight to me?” Her arrival on his balcony had stunned him, to say nothing of the whisper of his God’s presence around her.

She smiled uncertainly. “You’ve made me quite sentimental,” she admitted. She hesitated, then touched his bare knee lightly. “I was worried.”

And for worry, she had crossed a drop that would have made a trained soldier hesitate. If she had fallen, she knew what could have happened, but she had risked it all the same to be by his side. Eugenides shook his head, dazed, then reached down to lift her hand in his, kissing each knuckle. 

“I was safe,” she murmured, watching him. “He told me so.”

He.

The God of Thieves would never allow someone to fall who danced with a Thief. And they had danced. Oh, how they had danced.

Eugenides met her eyes. “You could have come an easier path. I would never want you to be put in harm’s way.”

Irene sat up, lifting her other hand to cup his face. “I knew you would look to Eddis. I wanted you to know you could look to me too.”

It felt safer to hide his face in her neck again, breathing her in, holding her. “I know,” he whispered, shivering as her cool fingertips brushed between his shoulders. Her hair was smooth as silk against his cheek and he kissed her throat, lost for words. She had come for him. She had taken the hand of his God to reach him.

She drew back a little, looking at him. Her face was still smudged with kohl and paint from the previous night, her hair in wild disarray around her, but he couldn’t remember her looking more beautiful. Of course, the only thing he could think to do was kiss her and again and again.

They were still breathing hard, holding one another fast, when the attendants began their incessant knocking. Irene jolted like a startled cat and he quickly lifted a finger to his lips to warn her to keep quiet. They could keep knocking as long as they pleased. They had in the past and now, his wife’s privacy was all that mattered.

“My clothes,” she whispered.

Eugenides glanced ruefully over towards the window and the desk and the delicate scattered of fabric all over the place. “Ah.” 

Irene must have recalled the night before and the small issue of having a husband urgently trying to remove delicate undergarments with a sharp hook in place of a hand. “Ah…”

He looked back down at her, trying to fight down a grin, imagining the look on his attendants’ faces as they tried to piece together torn fragments of what was clearly womens’ underclothing. He could well imagine the tales that would run wild in the guard rooms. 

To his surprise, she swatted him on the backside. “ _No_.”

He leaned down over her again, brushing the tip of her nose with his. “We could say it was that girl who brought me breakfast in my prison,” he teased. “You remember her?”

His wife curled her lip disdainfully. “What kind of woman would mount a Goatfoot?”

He had to smother his laugh in her throat and shifted his hips for emphasis. “What kind indeed?” He lifted his head, smiling down at her. The knocking was growing more insistent and he sighed. “But now, I must become your radiant Majesty.” He reluctantly eased himself out of her embrace and the warmth of the bed. 

As he gathered up the ripped scraps of her underthings, he heard Irene slip off the bed as well. He caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass, a glowing figure against the dark furniture and heavy fabric, and turned to see her draw one of his shirts on over her head.

Somehow, it was even more enticing than the underthings.

His breeches looked even better on her as well and his mouth was dry as she looked expectantly at him, tucking the ends of the shirt in. 

“Which way?” she asked in a whisper. 

Eugenides tried very hard not to examine the way the stays of his shirt really were doing very little to cover all of her. “Which way?”

“The palace will be awake by now.” She glanced at the window. “I can’t go back that way.”

He nodded, almost sighing aloud when she noticed his line of sight and pulled the stays tighter, her expression both smug and chastising. “The south corridor,” he said at once, flushing to the tip of his ears. “If you avoid the east servants quarters, there should be no one around. The guard changed half an hour ago. There’s a passage behind the tapestry of the fall of Pellia. Push the indented stone. It’ll bring you out near your quarters.”

She came closer, lifting a hand to cup his cheek. “One day, you’ll tell me your Thief’s secret about how you know all of these things…”

Eugenides closed his eyes, tilting his head into her touch. Well, the God of Thieves had offered her his hand too. “The architect,” he murmured. 

“The architect?”

He opened his eyes and smiled at her as the knocking on the door increased in volume. “It’s in your library.” He rose up to kiss her quickly. “South corridor.”

As she ran – graceful as a deer – towards the garderobe with its hidden door, he cocked his head, wondering how many ink bottles she would throw at his head when she found out that not only had his ancestor designed and built her palace, but that another ancestor had taken the wise precaution of stealing the plans. The Thieves of Eddis always liked to steal an advantage where they could.

He smiled. She had chosen to dance with a Thief. It would be a very boring life if he didn’t have the means to keep on surprising her. He considered the scraps of her undergarments in his hand. And it seemed she meant to do the same.


End file.
